Our Story.

Cultivate Initiatives began as a result of neighbors helping neighbors. In 2018, a new shelter for Veterans experiencing houselessness was announced to be moving to the Mill Park Neighborhood. While some protested with signs, neighbor and Cultivate Co-Founder Caleb Coder organized with the neighborhood to create an Eat & Greet event to welcome the shelter residents as neighbors. The shelter’s manager, and Cultivate Co-Founder Y’Ishia Rosborough joined in the effort of engaging with shelter residents as human beings and neighbors. 

This community engagement brought together a group of people determined to make spaces of community, safety, and belonging for all. This scrappy group of housed and unhoused neighbors began to call ourselves Cultivate Initiatives. 

Whether it was rain, snow, or sunshine, we spent our days going directly to our unhoused neighbors to bring supplies, food, and most importantly- human connection. Our willingness to go where others would not started to be recognized by the community, and we would eventually be commissioned to operate our first Warming Shelter, right in our stomping grounds of East Multnomah County. 

Again, this scrappy but committed group of people proved our capacity to make change in the community with very limited funding. We continued in the following months with our workforce development, community health, and hygiene response, alternative housing and sheltering, and community engagement and action. As we’ve continued to do the work in our community, increased funding has dramatically boosted our capacity to provide services and compensate our team. Although we are now a non-profit organization, we are still at the core a group of people who envision communities that are safe, supportive, and full of opportunity.